Meridian Unplugged - Powered by MrTechGuy.co.uk Forums Discussion Meridian - Systems One of my DSP33s is broken (in a very strange way)

The centre channel issue has been a common occurrence with BBC HD broadcasts with DD. You should try watching football when all you're getting is crowd noise....

Hi, I also had no Center channel info from BBC HD via freesat during the olympics.
A terrible sound mix really and I couldnt just use my normal non DD presets.
I suspect its the BBC's error, I have contacted Freesat technical about it.

I am loath to use an analog input into the 565 in this digital age but I am seriously considering it. I know it will sound much better if they are not going to sort this out. (I can use my "Football" Preset)

Cheers, Chris

Good luck, BTW.
I probably wasn't too clear.
A single faulty cable can cause this and it may not matter where it is in the system.
It just needs to be connected somewhere to cause the problem.

While unlikely, you've eliminated the likely causes.
Unfortunately, substituting all the cables to test this theory may pose a practical challenge.
Perhaps your local Meridian dealer has a box of cables to loan.

Damn speaker is working fine this evening! Oh well, until it barfs again...

Hate to be pedantic, but I wonder if this is just another example of what Nick and Malcolm mentioned earlier, i.e. if something is wrong, it must be the Meridian!!!

Difficult to believe that your D33 likes 96k now and not like it tomorrow

Personally, whenever I have a problem with something involving the Sky box, I will exhaust that first, before looking elsewhere. I've gotten so Paranoid, I've taken to recording the Software version on the Services section of the Sky box. If you start doing this, you realise how often Sky change their Software / Firmware

You say your "Damn speaker is working now". I wonder if it always did and something else has changed (Sky or other)

IMHO, Meridian stuff is usually less temperamental than most other stuff out there

Something else to try is to change the Optical Output on the Sky box off Bitstream and onto PCM. That way, ALL the channels coming from the Sky box will be 48k PCM and therefore more likely to show up any issues. Just a thought

No. There is something wrong with the speaker; toggling the L/R switch proved that (i.e. speaker was misbehaving when set to the right rear channel when the real right rear was fine). Also, the input signal was definitely two channel, which meant that the G68 was deriving the rears, so I don't think it was the source. I'll re-iterate that the same speaker has showed the fault in both front right and rear left positions, whilst the other four have been fine.

The speaker has been tempermental. The problem occurred briefly two times this year but went away on a power cycle. On the third occasion, it was more persistent and I arranged the return to Mother, but on the morning it was due to be picked up it was behaving perfectly again... So, in a way, I'm not surprised that it was working well last night.

Time for the hair dryer and cooling spray :-)

VK:

Is this temperature related by chance?

Its failure definitely sounds like something is going bonkers under stress, and I don't mean you (for once)

I did thing of that, but the room is at a pretty constant temperature and I've seen the problem with the speaker turned on from cold and an hour or so into watching something.

I just had a lovely week in the English Lake District and there is no stress in sight!

<exasperated>

Well, my (dodgy) DSP33 has been working perfectly for three weeks, until last night...

Following a couple of recent posts, I turned on my (dodgy) sub again. No hum! Great I thought and commenced a full calibration at the first opportunity. I got all of the levels, distances and phases sorted out and then started on MRC.

Then (groan), after the second MRC measurement, MConfig/G68 went wacko (3 seconds of hash from the speakers) and hung. I had to re-boot my PC to kill the MConfig process.

Second time around, apart from poor S/N on the sub measurement (consistently 33dB, needed 36dB), everything was going fine until... When it came to the rear left MRC test tone, no sound. I checked the speaker, power cycled it, and repeated the MRC measurement. Nada. I can hear the normal very quiet hiss, but I can't even get the calibration test tone out of it. I gave up in a huff and went to bed.

I can think of two possibilities:

1) The G68 settings got corrupted.
2) The DSP33 is dead.

To check (1) I cleared settings from the front panel wizard, Typed to 0, and then re-uploaded my MConfig settings, but that didn't sort it out. I forgot that I could simply flick the L/R switch on my other rear to see if the G68 is putting out a left rear channel. Will check this evening.

</exasperated>

Can you run the DSPs direct from a squeezebox or DVD etc to see if they're both still working?

That's an option. I'll see if the G68 is putting out a left rear signal first (I suspect it is). I can then try the dodgy speaker direct from a CD player. Thanks for the suggestion.